


Unsheathe Your Sword

by kizuke



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Kaiju
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 06:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kizuke/pseuds/kizuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the dawn of the kaiju invasion, Tony comes up with a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unsheathe Your Sword

On August 11, 2013, at 0700 hours, Tony was passed out in bed. He’d spent 46 hours in the workshop, and coming awake again was about as pleasant as a sledgehammer to the face. His eyes were crusted-over and bleary, and he spent several long seconds just staring uncomprehendingly at his rumpled sheets.

“Sir,” JARVIS said, evidently not for the first time, “There are reports of a giant creature approaching San Francisco from the sea.”

Tony rolled slowly over to squint out his windows. New York ran on outside, unperturbed.

“SHIELD response?” he asked.

“SHIELD jets are en route,” JARVIS responded.

“Can we get there faster?”

“No,” JARVIS reported. “Given your current response times, Iron Man can reach San Francisco in approximately two hours. We will be able to assist only with the aftermath.”

It took a while for this to process. “If SHIELD needs me, they’ll call,” he decided, finally, and went back to sleep.

Ten hours, two coffees, and half a sandwich later, he remembered being woken up at ass o’clock in the morning. “What happened with San Francisco?” he asked.

“SHIELD took the creature down with missiles,” JARVIS reported. “Property damage in San Francisco is severe.”

“Route disaster assistance funds through the Foundation to fund rebuilding efforts,” he said. He looked down at his sandwich, appetite lost, but forced himself to finish it.

*

“Iron Man can reach Manila in approximately six hours,” JARVIS reported. “Local military forces are en route and are expected to be able to eliminate the threat, albeit with severe property damage. Civilians are in the process of evacuation.”

*

“Iron Man can reach Cabo San Lucas in approximately two hours,” JARVIS reported. “SHIELD is sending a task force from San Diego to assist the local military in eliminating the threat. Civilians had ample evacuation warning.”

One was an incident and twice was a coincidence, but thrice was a pattern. Since the Chitauri attack, the world had been no stranger to odd belligerent creatures, but most appeared to be isolated incidents. The San Francisco, Manila and now Cabo San Lucas creatures, on the other hand, seemed similar somehow. For one, sea approaches were uncommon for alien attacks.

“Give me SHIELD research on this attack, as well as the San Francisco and Manila creatures,” said Tony, and after a moment, a dizzying array of holo-screens burst up.

“The three creatures appear to have originated from a fissure-like dimensional portal in the Pacific Ocean. The portal appears to be unidirectional, as items from Earth, including firepower, have not been able to enter it. SHIELD research on the physiology of the creatures has been fairly inconclusive due to missile damage.”

“They’re calling them kaiju,” said Tony, flicking at a report.

*

“Tony?”

“Yeah, Cap, it’s me.”

“Hey, Tony, how are you doing?” His voice is warm. Tony can hear the rush of air and traffic in the background. He can practically see the wind in Steve’s hair and the smile on his face. And the pile-up in his wake à la  _Memoirs of a Geisha_.

“Cap, do you need another lecture on road safety? Wear a damn helmet.”

Steve just laughs. “Why’d you call, Tony?”

Tony sighs. “Listen, it’s about San Francisco, and Manila, and Cabo San Lucas.”

The humour falls from Steve’s voice. “Right,” he says, soberly. “SHIELD handled those without us, didn’t they?” The sounds of rushing air and the motorcycle engine fade as he pulls up somewhere.

“With local military forces, usually,” says Tony. “Lots of civilian casualties, lots of damage to the cities.”

“We can’t fight every monster, Tony,” says Steve, slowly.

“No,” Tony concedes. “We can’t get halfway across the world, or even halfway across the country, before the kaiju destroys the city. SHIELD and the local military outposts are usually the best emergency response teams we have for this right now.”

“Kaiju?”

“That’s what SHIELD is calling them. Japanese for ‘strange beast’.  There are lots of Japanese monster movies; that’s what the monsters are called. Have you watched Godzilla?”

“Tony,” Steve says, in his Pepper voice.

“They’re the same,” Tony tells him. “San Francisco, Manila, Cabo San Lucas, the creatures all came from the same place. It’s a portal. In the Pacific. SHIELD hasn’t found a way to close it; it looks like a one-way kind of deal.”

“And you think more will come,” Steve says. It’s not a question.

“More will come,” Tony tells him, definitive. “And faster. There were six months between San Francisco and Manila. Only four between Manila and Cabo San Lucas.”

“It could be random,” Steve suggests. “Just wandering through the portal by accident.”

“And unerringly heading towards a densely-populated city,” says Tony, “and each somewhat more powerful than the last. The collateral damage has been going down, Steve, but only because people are on the look-out now. Our forces engage the kaiju earlier, so they don’t get as far inland. But the battles are lasting longer.”

“What are you planning, Tony?” Steve asks, because he knows Tony, and of course Tony has a plan.

Tony hates his plan.

“If –” he stops, licks his lips. “If each major port city had an Iron Man. It could defend itself. It would be a more targeted force. There would be less collateral damage. We could herd it away from the citizens, give them more time to escape. Try and confine the battle to open areas.”

Steve is silent.

“But the reactor tech would be vulnerable,” Tony says, quietly. “If it got into the wrong hands, it would be disastrous.”

“Are other power sources feasible?”

“Only nuclear cores have that kind of power. But – it’s not safe, for the pilots. And worse, if the kaiju damage the nuclear cores, it could expose the entire city to the radiation. And if they’re fighting in the water, it would spread, get into the plants and the fish. People would get sick.”

“Which is worse, Tony?” Steve asks. “The possibility of terror and death from the misuse of arc reactor tech in the future, or the inevitable terror and death from the unchecked kaiju right now?”

*

The Avengers trickle slowly back into the Tower – Bruce flies in from Kolkata, first, because Tony calls him in to Science. Then Steve makes it back from the road, and Natasha, Clint, and Coulson filter in from wherever SHIELD had secreted them.

Thor takes a while, but one day he lands on the helipad with a crack of lightning, bearing news. Jane Foster is in China, examining the Breach. There’s frustratingly little progress on that end, because the Breach continues to be impervious to scans and impervious to entry. They’re hoping that there will be a window of opportunity to conduct more research when the next kaiju comes through, but it is difficult to ensure the safety of a reconnaissance team.

“I have inquired of my mother,” Thor tells them, “but she is uncertain as to the origins of these creatures. Asgard has been isolated since the destruction of the Bifrost, and her channels of information have been disrupted.”

It’s disappointing news, but there isn’t time to dwell on it. If they extrapolate from the previous three attacks, the next attack should come within three months.

*

The Jaegers, well, they have to be big. Bigger than the Hulkbuster armour; bigger than buildings. Light enough to be quick; solid enough to take hits. Precise enough that the pilot can use the fighting skills they’ve already got, rather than waste time acquiring a whole new set of Jaeger-specific skills. Flexible enough in their capabilities that it doesn’t matter who’s piloting them, so that the pilots can be rotated.

They’re not big Iron Men; they’re a new thing altogether.

“Iron Man was built for me,” Tony explains, over pasta. “It’s not really possible for anyone to steal a suit, because they won’t be able to control it well. The user interface is linked to my neural patterns, and when there’s too much to process than I can handle on my own, JARVIS picks up the slack.”

“So we can’t just give a Jaeger pilot the Iron Man interface, because they don’t have Tony’s brain,” Bruce says.

“Nobody has Tony’s brain,” Steve sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“But we can’t just make each one their own interface, because then I’d have to meet every single pilot and customise the interface for them,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose at the thought. “It’s possible to make an adaptive interface that will automatically map to their major neural functions, but even then, they won’t have a JARVIS who’s enough in sync with them that he can make up for the deficiencies. JARVIS has had years to get to know me and Rhodey.”

“Basically, we’re trying to build an interface which can accept anybody, not just Tony,” says Bruce, twirling noodles around his fork, “and an AI which can adapt to anybody, not just Tony. Without those, the neural load will be too much for the pilot to handle.”

There’s a long silence as everyone tries to process that.

Tony knows he isn’t the easiest person to accept or adapt to, but that’s what he’s got JARVIS for. He’s not really ready for JARVIS to be open to everyone and anyone. It would feel like losing part of himself.

*

“You can compromise,” Natasha tells him, appearing suddenly beside him in the workshop and startling him half to death. His spanner drops to the floor with a resounding clang, narrowly missing his toes.

“God, Natasha,” he groans, picking it up. “Would it kill you to wear a little bell or something?”

“Yes it would,” says Clint, materialising at his other side. Tony would have thought that he was physically incapable of startling again so soon, but apparently not.

Natasha sits primly on the edge of his workbench. “We’re here to stage an intervention, Tony,” she says.

Clint perches casually on the corner of his table. “Your co-dependent relationship with your AI disturbs us. No offense, JARVIS.”

They lean towards him in creepy unison. “You need to make real friends, Tony.”

“Oh my god,” Tony half-shouts. “ _You’re_  the ones who are disturbingly co-dependent!”

“Yes, exactly,” says Natasha, leaning back in satisfaction.

“What?”

“People can be in sync, too,” Clint says. “Maybe instead of an AI to lighten the neural load, you can have two pilots instead.”

Tony makes a thoughtful, humming noise. That might actually work. “You could have just said that in the first place, you know, instead of staging a practical demonstration.”

“It wasn’t staged,” Clint informs him seriously.

“We really are concerned,” says Natasha, eyes wide.

Tony races for the elevator.

*

It’s a beautiful solution, if creepily invasive. They watch the colours on the brain scans dance on a holo-screen, Natasha’s reds and Clint’s purples and Jaeger greys settling into patterns which very nearly match. It’s a bit like holding hands – Clint’s is large and calloused while Natasha’s is lithe, elegant, and terrifyingly deadly, but somehow they fit in the same small space.

On another screen is the simulation Natasha and Clint are seeing. They slash mercilessly at a kaiju, blue blood dripping from a flashy sword. The kaiju screams, raising an arm to strike at the Jaeger’s head, and Natasha’s left arm slides the blade of a hidden dagger smoothly into the kaiju’s heart.

The sim ends, and the two of them slip out of the simulator cockpit.

Clint glances at Natasha. Natasha side-eyes him back. Then, abruptly, the tension melts. “I knew you ate that last pudding,” Clint grumbles.

“ _You_  drank my vodka and blamed it on Tony,” says Natasha.

“Hey!” Tony yells, indignant.

It works.


End file.
